The Air Force, bidding farewell to an era, on Monday dismantled one of its most colorful and controversial Cold War commands and christened a successor designed for a world of Persian Gulf-style conflicts. Under rainy skies, the Strategic Air Command laid down its organizational shield in a cavernous hangar thundering with the sound of martial music.

A U.S. Titan 2 nuclear missile crew was performing a routine launch drill in Kansas in 1980 when a real launch sequence suddenly began, threatening to fire the weapon, a report on nuclear accidents revealed Thursday. Scrambling, the crew managed to prevent the launch by hastily disconnecting the main power supply. Meanwhile, nuclear-armed B-52 bombers were being readied to respond to the false computer alarm of a "nuclear attack."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave authority in 1957 to senior U.S. military commanders to retaliate with nuclear weapons if the president could not be reached or was otherwise unable to respond to a nuclear attack against the United States, according to declassified documents released this week.

January 11, 1988 | JOHN M. BRODER and RALPH VARTABEDIAN, Times Staff Writers

The Air Force is developing a new high-speed, high-altitude spy plane designed to elude enemy radar, defense industry sources said Sunday. The new stealth-type aircraft, a successor to the 25-year-old SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance plane, will be built by Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Group in Burbank, which also built the SR-71 and the F-19 stealth fighter, the sources said. Lockheed and Defense Department officials would not comment on the secret program.

"Arm the phasers" is a battle command that Pentagon officials believe will soon move out of the realm of science fiction. Under an ambitious $5-billion program that is supposed to revolutionize warfare much as gunpowder once did, some of the nation's top scientists are working on a high-energy chemical laser that would shoot lethal beams a few hundred miles to knock out enemy missiles.

A blue-ribbon commission on Wednesday called for creation of a Cabinet-level agency to assume responsibility for defending the nation against the increasing likelihood of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The bipartisan panel, led by former U.S. Sens. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Gary Hart (D-Colo.

A secret Pentagon planning document orders the U.S. military services to prepare for a time when the United States could fight major wars in two regions of the world at once and thwart adversaries equipped with formidable, high-technology weapons. The classified Defense Guidance document, drafted to steer Pentagon budgeting and U.S. military strategies, was signed by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Friday.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee proposed Saturday that the United States and Soviet Union undertake an unprecedented overhaul of the safeguards they have in place to protect against an accidental or unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said he will make a formal proposal soon to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to begin a sweeping review of existing mechanisms adopted by the armed forces to ensure the security of the nation's nuclear weapons.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin said Thursday that he has decided against scaling back American armed forces to the point where they could no longer win two major conflicts at once and instead will seek to retain a two-war capability throughout the post-Cold War era. His decision came amid mounting criticism of the "win-hold-win" proposal, both in the military and among some foreign governments.

U.S. warships attacked two strategic Iranian oil platforms today in retaliation for a mine explosion that damaged a Navy frigate and injured 10 American seamen last week, the White House said. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said President Reagan "directed U.S. forces at 1 a.m. EDT today to strike" Iranian oil platforms at Sirri and Sassan in the central Persian Gulf.